The probes involve five current and former employees of the firm – all with Chinese citizenship – and are being led by authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen, Bloomberg reported today.

“We are aware a small number of our employees in China are under investigation,” an AstraZeneca spokesman told AFP today in response to a request for comment.

“We have no further information to share at this point,” the statement added.

One investigation pertains to the firm’s collection of patient data, which authorities suspect may have breached Chinese privacy laws, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the situation.

Another probe is related to imports of a liver cancer drug that has not been approved in mainland China, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg reported the employees were detained “earlier in the summer”.

China is a key market for AstraZeneca, developer of a Covid jab widely administered throughout the world during the coronavirus pandemic.

The firm, headquartered in Cambridge, UK, currently has 90,000 employees around the world.

Global firms have faced an increasingly difficult business environment in China in recent years, industry groups say, citing a lack of transparency on data laws and prolonged detentions of employees in the country.